The present invention relates to a so-called electronic photography system which can electronically record images on such a memory device as a semiconductor memory or a magnetic disk without using any films.
Silver halide film is usually used for photograph. The exposures are developed and printed on a photographic paper for its appreciation. There exists a technique for displaying images printed on a photographic paper on a TV display. For example, disclosed in JP-A-3-261935 is a system in which picture images printed on a photographic paper are displayed on a monitor device together with information associated with the picture images, such as shooting days and shutter speeds.
Meanwhile, an electronic still image capturing unit has been put in practical use in these years. This image capturing unit is designed to electronically record picture images on a memory device such as a semiconductor memory or a magnetic disk without using any films. In a reproduction mode of the image capturing unit, the recorded picture images can be reproduced on an external TV display or can be transferred to a computer to be used for desk-top publishing (DTP).
Photographs for use by a single individual have been rapidly increased lately. Typically, pictures taken by an individual amount to several tens a year. Thus, several hundreds of pictures are produced in a family. In particular, a newly-wedded couple, a family having a newly born baby or a person who goes abroad, has many chances of taking pictures and thus the number of pictures taken per year amounts nearly to 500.
It is highly troublesome to re-arrange and keep these pictures, which results in may cases in that such pictures are merely inserted into a pocket-type album or kept in different places. For this reason, even when it is desired to find some pictures, such finding is difficult. In addition, when pictures are kept in different places, such pictures tend to be lost undesirably.
For the purpose of re-arranging and keeping pictures, in general, there is used such an album of a type that pictures are bonded on layout sheets. In this case, it is also possible to divide the pictures according to the theme or subject matter or to add some comments to them. However, rearranging and keeping pictures requires a lot of labors, including classifying and rearranging the pictures and arranging the pictures on layout sheets in a beautiful and balanced layout. Further, such comments as associated dates and places are added to the pictures. When an user after taking pictures immediately conducts the above works, the works might not impose so burdensome feeling on the user. However, once such pictures are left alone and accumulated as not rearranged, it becomes troublesome to rearrange them. And such pictures contain many pictures which are not taken well, that is, out of focus or have improper exposure.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an image recording/reproducing system which can eliminate the above problems in the prior art and can easily rearrange and keep photographic images and also can display the images for appreciation.